Such losses are devastating for families and I can only extend sincere regrets to the family.
They may be wondering how such a thing can happen and, from personal experience, I can only say that even without details of an accident, people naturally try to analyze and speculate or even judge what went wrong to "learn". Working from only news articles or hearsay, this can only be speculation. If the family reads this board, they should know to take what is said with a grain of salt or as only very general observations. As more facts emerge, any analysis can change.
The following are observations by me alone and have nothing specific to do with this tragedy. They relate to the comment about a rise in deaths while scuba diving.
As one writer here observed, dive resorts and some schools have taken to running "dipolma mills" for scuba instruction (I think PADI even lets you do the course work on the internet - I could be wrong). This is because agencies make money off training divers. The more divers trained the more instructors are neede and have work teaching basic scuba and those expensive advanced classes.
Because terribly declining sales and competition from other sportsnappealing to youger people (kayaking, off-roadbiking, rock climbing, etc.) the numbers of people eligible to be students has declined. For some local shops, the goal seems to be less to create qualified divers as to sell them a bunch of equipment immediately after certification when they are still enthused. This is common in a lot of sports where people want to buy the most right after starting. After that, a small number stay at it and the rest give it up or turn into once a year vacation divers. Once certified, we all seem to regard it as being like riding a bicycle - it is something you never forget how to do. After all, you're "certified".
The dive industry is motivated to get as many people into diving as possible because the sale of scuba equipment by local shops is sliding. Internet sales are raping local shops - they have to train divers wherever they can be found and try to sell equipment to get them started. If they don't, they may never have a sale. They produce well qualified, inexperienced divers. Sadly, a few (perhaps very few) take this opportunity to maximize sales with less regard to encouraging training. One shop I know uses exactly this model. It gets students into the course, uses it tell them to buy an expensive package (very expensive) or they will die and then sells a Caribbean vacation.
After finishing the vacation, the gear goes in the closet (especially in an area of cold water where I live). They never use it again and 2 or 3 years later it pops up on ebay (cheap).
I have absolutely no reason to believe this observation is directly related to this incident. It is just a general observation as to why, at least anecdotely, it seems that diver deaths increase. There are other reasons that may be at work, i.e. wider reporting, internet communication, more attention to safety and so on. In terms of real statistics, DAN itself has trouble acquiring enough information to tell if deaths are really diving related or natural causes. They also have to search out knowledge of when accidents or deaths occur because not all are reported to them.
My purely pesonal opinion is that diving deaths may not be rising in absolute numbers. They may. however, be rising in relation to the percetage of trained divers. To really figure it out, a lot of unavailable data (maybe impossible to get) needs analysis. Some are the various levels of training, experience, types of experience, frequency of diving and so forth. Maybe this can be done. I am not qualified to say.
Again I can only say to the family that any death affects all divers. No one wants to lose a member of the dive community. Whatever the cause, every incident (accident or death) reminds us that diving is a skill that requires constant attention to remain safe. That applies to all divers, new and old (sometimes old divers may be the worst because they get too casual).
That is my thoughts. Again, I am very sorry to the family.
